You can now download the Rebecca Lynn Howard No Rules album for $7.99 with tracks at $.69 each.  Bonus tracks include “My Kentucky” and “I Will Never Marry.”

“I do think that No Rules shows how I’ve bridged the gaps I’d sometimes felt in my own music,” she muses. “I’ve always had touches of bluegrass, traditional country, pop and maybe a little bit of soul in my music. But I’ve always written and sung the truth. It’s not something I have to sell, because I only sing the truth. If it doesn’t move me, I won’t sing it. And for me, this album is as true as it can be.”

Rebecca Lynn Howard Press Release

Saguaro put a special playlist together summarizing some of our current and past releases.

Track Listing:
Edwin McCain – Walk With You
Blind Boys – Perfect Peace
Patty Loveless – Busted
Susan Ashton – Revelation Song
Collin Raye – She’s With Me
Rebecca Lynn Howard – Sing Cause I Love To
Adam Hood – Buzzes Like Neon
Tanya Tucker – Love’s Gonna Live Here
Hank Williams – Hey Good Lookin’

No Rules Album

As One As Two Can Be

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REBECCA LYNN HOWARD’S
‘SING ‘CAUSE I LOVE TO”
REACHES TOP 40 ON MUSIC ROW CHART

New Album, No Rules, Climbs As High As #4 On CMT Chart
With Support From iMeem.com and Continued Strong Press

Exclusive Rebecca Lynn Howard Acoustic Sessions
Available Online
Now

Fairfax, VA (September 5, 2008) — Nashville-based singer/songwriter Rebecca Lynn Howard’s current single, “Sing ‘Cause I Love To,” has landed in Music Row’s Top 40, the first off her new album, No Rules. Released on June 17th on the new Saguaro Road Records, No Rules climbed to #4 on the CMT album chart while “Sing ‘Cause I Love To” can currently be heard on over 100 radio stations across the country. A number of promotional campaigns for both the album and the single are underway, including:

• Exclusive acoustic versions of “Life As A Dollar” and “As One As Two Can Be” from No Rules are currently available as No Rules Acoustic Sessions via digital music stores including iTunes, Amazon, and Rhapsody.

• No Rules was featured on the iMeem.com homepage for an extended period, receiving over a million unique views daily. A guest playlist feature is also in the works.

• Critical raves include:

o “(No Rules) shows off her tremendous voice to great effect…” – Country Weekly

o “Range. Color. Power. Rebecca Lynn Howard’s got them.” – Knight Ridder

o “Prolific Nashville songwriter stretches her wings on this collection of R&B-influenced originals and covers.” – Houston Chronicle

o “(Do Right Woman, Do Right Man) projects the original passion Aretha Franklin belts out, but it takes on a new life with Howard’s voice behind the lyrics.” – CMT.com

Already a successful songwriter at the young age of 28, Howard’s new album reflects her dynamic creative growth that began with penning songs for some of country music’s biggest artists while most of her peers were still in college. After her debut, Forgive, hit country music’s top 5 in 2002, Howard began exploring music outside of country, combining it with rhythm and blues, rock, Americana and more. Her songwriting makes the perfect partner to her impassioned vocals, which found new depth and range on No Rules. She also recorded three songs that she didn’t write, including “Shakey Ground,” made famous by The Temptations and Delbert McClinton and a cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Do Right Woman- Do Right Man” with a special guest appearance by the song’s original guitarist, Jimmy Johnson. Most recently, Rebecca co-wrote “Hello,” which appears on Julianne Hough’s new hit album as well as a track for CMT “Can You Duet” finalists Joey and Rory’s debut album.

With the release of Howard’s No Rules, Saguaro Road Records asserts its commitment to presenting highly talented artists that capture uniquely American roots music. The marketing effort will combine Direct Holdings’ unparalleled direct response expertise with all the traditional sales and marketing techniques. In addition to Rebecca Lynn Howard’s current album, Saguaro Road Records will release newly recorded country albums by Patty Loveless (Sleepless Nights, due September 9, 2008) and an album yet to be named from Tanya Tucker in 2009.

About Time Life:

Time Life and the Time Life logo are registered trademarks of Time Warner Inc. and affiliated companies, used under license by Direct Holdings Americas Inc., which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc. or Time Inc. Headquartered in Fairfax VA, Direct Holdings Americas Inc.’s history began in 1961 as a direct marketing division of Time Incorporated specializing in music and books. The business has been operated as a separate company since the mid-1970s when it relocated to Virginia, and has since grown to become one of the world’s largest direct marketers of audio and video products throughout North America, Europe and Australia. The Company has set the standard in the direct response industry by pioneering direct marketing techniques and building one of the most trusted and recognized brands in commerce. The Company now also sells its products through major traditional and non-traditional retailers around the world as well as via the Internet. The Company was sold in 2003 to private investors. Saguaro Road Records is a trademark of Direct Holdings Americas Inc.

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by F. Daniel Kent
A&E Editor
Posted 09/01/2008

No Rules says it all. As the title of Rebecca Lynn Howard’s debut album, handpicked to launch the new Saguaro Road Records label, these two words sum up this songwriter’s approach to music in general.

This extraordinary release is not surprising, for fans have come to expect the unexpected from the young woman who has accomplished so much so soon.

Established in Nashville as a writer whose catalog has been mined by Reba McEntire, Patty Loveless, John Michael Montgomery, Trisha Yearwood and other headliners, and in demand as a guest vocalist on sessions with the likes of Vince Gill and Dolly Parton, Howard has above all been celebrated as an artist in her own right since hitting the country music Top 5 with her album, Forgive, in 2002.

From the start, Howard has taken inspiration from the broad vista of American music. True, she was raised in Appalachia, but there was more music around her in eastern Kentucky than the bluegrass and country with which she has been associated. Gospel also flowed through that world in more than one stream. And Howard drew nourishment from it all.

Work on the project began several years ago when Howard began feeling the urge to explore.

From its earliest moments, the album embraced the idea of letting the music set its own direction, without category or preconception – with no rules. And the more freedom she allowed herself in her writing, the more this side of her creativity began to emerge.

The feeling in her music was evolving, reaching back to untapped parts of her past to invigorate her established sound. Howard rode this current from the writing stage to the recording studio, too.

It meant taking a few risks – but with no rules at play, these were risks worth taking.

Howard wound up heading out of Nashville to record in the remote neighborhood of Muscle Shoals, Ala., whose place in R&B history mirrored the directions she was mapping out for No Rules.

With producer Michael Curtis, a fixture on staff at the legendary Fame Music Company, she assembled a band that knew how to enhance great songs with a backup that’s both raw and tight.

Then, over the band’s steamy grooves, she laid down the most emotional performances she’s ever committed to disc.

Recently, Rebecca Lynn Howard spoke with O&AN in an exclusive phone interview about the new album.

O&AN: No Rules is a definite departure from some of your earlier work. What made you want to pursue this direction instead of a more traditional country sound?

RLH: I took a few years off from recording and touring to focus on my songwriting so that I could try and build my catalogue back up. It really just seemed like a natural evolution. My songs were starting to sound more soulful. I was writing songs that were completely unfiltered.

There was a kind of newness to my writing that as it evolved and I was writing more and more of that raw, truthful vein it seemed that my voice started to follow. I was starting to develop more of a blues or neo-soul sound that was a strong part of my childhood.

I grew up in the Pentecostal church and our sister church was an all-black Full Gospel church so I was around those sounds a lot as a child and that was what I felt was being birthed inside of me and finally coming out after all these years.

O&AN: What were some of the ways that you worked to imbue this album fully with the sound you were after?

RLH: When it came time to make this record I had all of these songs that were similar in feel that had a very strong soulful undertone and we were recording in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where so many great soul records were born.

The producer for the record was from that area and we hired musicians who were also from the area and who had played on a lot of those old hit records. A lot of the people from the Muscle Shoals area also sang background harmonies on the record so we were trying to keep a common thread running through all of the songs that resonated with that feeling of being in the middle of history and paying tribute to that history with the music.

O&AN: As much of a change in sound as this album is for you was there any fear that some of your audience might not get it?

RLH: My fans have always been very responsive to me taking chances with my music. Some of the most common comments I get from fans is that they appreciate how flexible as an artist I am and that I can pull off a number of sounds from pop to country to soul without loosing what it is they like about me as a performer, so I wasn’t afraid at all to go in this new direction.

I have always been blessed with fans who want to come along for the ride and see where I was headed. For the most part they knew it was already in me and it was only a matter of time before it got out.

O&AN: Many people may not realize that you had made your name as a songwriter long before you became a well-known performer. Which aspect of your career do you prefer more: writing or performing?

RLH: As a songwriter I feel very validated when another artist takes one of my songs as their own because as an artist I know how difficult that can be to find something that comes from outside of yourself to make it fit somewhere inside of you that makes sense.

It’s a real honor because it is always easy for someone to record their own work because they are the ones who love it. It’s a little harder to find your place in someone else’s world with recording your work. Writing is a very big part of who I am because it is my therapy. It is how I deal with everything that happens to me from day to day. It’s how I help my friends deal with what they are going through.

I get a real rush from performing but it is over in an hour or two. The song lives forever and that is the amazing thing for me about being a songwriter. At the same time it’s an amazing thing to bring your music to people and share it with them

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